


We're Not What We've Seen

by mediocrityatbest



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: I know I didn't check major character death, Only Kind of - Freeform, Other, SO, however, it is important to note that they do sort of die, it's not entirely permanent, read with caution i guess, the title is from Marching On by OneRepublic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 18:12:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediocrityatbest/pseuds/mediocrityatbest
Summary: Nothing is guaranteed in war, and Patton knows this better than most. That doesn’t stop him from believing they’ll make it through mostly unscathed.





	We're Not What We've Seen

He saw the knife sticking out of the stomach, and he did his best not to see the face that belonged to the body. The body, still alive, was bad enough. If he had to attach it to a face and a personality and a name and someone’s  _ fear _ , then he wouldn’t be able to do his job quite so well. And nobody wanted that to happen.

Except, just like every time, as he reached for the blade and made a plan in his head, he looked at the face. And, just like every time, he was frozen.

The face that belonged to the stab wound was Virgil. He was dead silent, and Patton had never hated that phrase more than he did right now. There was blood pouring over Virgil’s lips, and Patton thought that maybe, hopefully, it was just because he bit his tongue and not because of any internal damage.

Patton rushed forward, reaching for Virgil’s hand, trying to soothe him, anything to make his friend better, but another man was supported in who needed his attention more than Virgil.

This man had a gunshot wound in his chest. There was a horrible whine coming out of his mouth that sounded like the death surrounding them, and Patton’s mind was immediately filled with the images of scalpels and bandages and everything else he’d need to correct this wound.

He had a roll of cotton bandages in his hand, not at all what he was looking for, when he caught a look at the face belonging to the bullet wound. It was pale and smeared with dirt, but that didn’t stop Patton from recognizing his oldest - and best, though he always insisted they were all equal - friend, Roman. Roman’s hair was hanging in his face in sweaty clumps - or maybe they were clumping with blood and that’s not really where Patton needed his mind to be going right now, but it was and he couldn’t stop it - 

There was a barked order, and then Patton was rushing toward Roman, now with antiseptic in hand - when had he picked that up? He didn’t know. It was all going too fast - and trying to clean the bullet wound, see the damage, determine how best to save his best friend’s life from this stupid war and -

A flurry of activity caught Patton’s attention, and he jerked his head around despite Roman dying -  _ no, not dying, he’s not dying, he’s just hurting a little, this is fixable, I can fix this _ \- hurting in front of him, and he saw a third person getting dragged into the med tent. This person was missing a leg, though it was hard to tell how much. They were passed out, or at the very least Patton hoped they were because missing a limb was one of the worst things that could happen to you, all the soldiers agreed, except for holding your friends in your arms as they died because they got hurt doing something they’d never wanted to do in the first place.

The worst part was, Patton knew his job. He knew it well, inside out, he’d been doing it for years. Patton knew it was worst come, first serve unless you had already rung death’s doorbell. (Here, they tended to forgo waiting on the doorstep. Soldiers were higher priority than that.) He knew that, despite the missing limb, this person could still live, which was great. It really was a good thing, because nobody  _ deserved _ to die - Patton would kill the people who hurt his friends like this, he’d make them regret ever seeing a weapon or hearing of war - but it also meant he had to turn his back on Roman, and on Virgil, because while they were both hurt, they could live longer than this third person without treatment. So, shouting an order for  _ someone, please _ to handle his two friends, Patton rushed for the third.

He wished he hadn’t as soon as he got there. The leg was gone, most of the shin at least, and the pant leg was shredded and bloody. There was blood smeared on everything about this person, actually, including the glasses with the same frames as Patton’s. The glasses this person wore had a crack through the right lens, although it hadn’t completely shattered yet, and if Patton really wanted to catastrophize the situation, he’d say they looked a lot like Logan.

But this couldn’t be Logan, because they’d never be caught by a landmine, or whatever had done this. And if this was Logan, laid out on a table in front of Patton, eyelids fluttering and barely alive, then that meant all three pieces of Patton’s carefully constructed world were here, depending on him to choose which one of them got to live, and if he didn’t decide now, none of them would.

Logan took a breath, and there was a death rattle in their chest. Propped up on a chair, Roman kept crying for help, his pleas sometimes wordless in his pain. A few feet away, Virgil was laid on the floor, jaw clenched in a way to keep all the pain inside. And they were all dying and Patton needed to get some help for him and for them now, or they were going to die, and if they died, there was no way Patton was going to be able to make it through this stupid war and this stupid med tent and really Patton didn’t even know why he’d volunteered to be a medic, because this was just cruel and unusual punishment, which he’s pretty sure is illegal, but then again so is murder.

When all the tension goes out of Virgil’s body, Patton forces back a sob. Patton doesn’t realize all the other people, injured and nurses, are gone. He can only see that Virgil has lost this fight, and now, when it mattered most, Patton has failed his friend. Virgil lays dead on the floor, knife like a dirty flag marking the territory of the enemy. Patton wants to yank the knife out and give it back to the owner, show them how a knife the stomach feels, twisting all your insides up until there’s nothing left but a knot of spaghetti noodles and pain.

The next thing that happens is one the most horrible that he’s ever experienced. Roman, solid and steady Roman who always knew exactly what to do and who never deviated from Patton’s side, goes silent. The whines and crying stop far too suddenly and Patton is begging that this, whatever  _ this  _ is, stop because he can’t take anymore. This can’t go on anymore -  _ he  _ can’t go on anymore. But whatever’s out there doesn’t care, and Roman, now so pale from his usual dark native american skin, falls off the chair. He hits the ground, muddy with blood, and he doesn’t get up or flinch or even cry. He just falls, and lays there. Patton wants to beg him to get up, please Roman, because this isn’t funny, it was never funny, it can’t be funny. Patton wants to pull him up and drag him all the way home where Roman can sing or act or both or neither or whatever he wants instead of being here. They can take Logan and Virgil with them too and they can be  _ happy _ , happy and not dead or dying or under constant threat. But it’s too late for Roman, and it’s too late for Virgil, but it doesn’t have to be too late for Logan.

Patton turns toward them, determined to do something, anything to rectify this because everything is coming apart at the seams but he can at least save one of his friends.

But that’s not happening either. Logan looks at Patton, somehow more coherent now and Patton doesn’t have time to question it because he’s too focused on finding bandages to stop the blood flow so Logan doesn’t bleed out before Patton can bring them a better solution than what he had now. But they keep looking at Patton, and Patton stops, stalls, freezes to look at Logan, and Logan smiles. They’re in what Patton knows is the worst pain of their life, where any other person would have have been screaming or unconscious at best, and all they do is smile at Patton in such a sad way. They aren’t surprised and they aren’t scared. Logan looks accepting, like they know what’s coming - like they knew before it had started - and they smile at Patton. It’s an apology smile, and it’s a sad feeling, and it’s a farewell that Patton can’t accept under any circumstances. Farewell is not allowed to happen. Farewell means everything Patton has been fighting to have for so long is void and null, and farewell means he failed, and worst of all, farewell means Patton is left entirely alone, his three best friends, his famILY, is gone. So Patton can’t do farewell, and Patton won’t do farewell if God himself came down and told him it was the Right Thing To Do. Patton doesn’t care, because Patton has always been stubborn when it comes to what he believes is right, and he’d go toe-to-toe in his army supply boots with any God who thought they got to decide when Patton’s family died.

Logan’s eyes still close, and the sad, sad smile still falls away, and Patton is left alone, in a tent surrounded by bodies, wishing that  _ some _ deity would come down from their high throne so Patton could kick their stupid ass until he got his family back.

All Patton can do is cry as he stares around him, though. No god comes down, and no one reanimates. Patton is left alone, with the worst farewell anyone could ask for, and he doesn’t know how to live like this.

Patton shoots up in bed, grasping his chest, tears streaming down his face. He’s not breathing right and his heart is wild in his chest, and he can barely remember what’s real and what was dreamt. He fumbles the night stand for his glasses first, and then the glass of water that he keeps nearby for emergencies - like now, when nothing is right and everything feels wrong and Patton can’t remember how to fix the problem or if the problem can be fixed.

Eventually he remembers what the therapist told him, and he recites what he knows.  _ My name is Patton Foster. I am thirty-four years old. I have been to war, and I lived. I am home, in my house, safe. Everything is okay. _ He repeats this to himself, in whispers and in his head, until it sinks in and he believes it again. He casts an exhausted glance at the clock, and wants to collapse: four fifteen a.m. Too early to get up, but too late to complete another sleep cycle before his alarm goes off.

Not that it matters. He won’t be sleeping again tonight either way. Patton doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares often, but they always ensure he won’t be getting anymore sleep.

Instead, Patton takes his glass to the kitchen and refills it. As he goes back to his room, sipping the cold, grounding water, he pushes open another door. The hall light filters in, and Patton can barely see the outline of a person underneath the blankets. The purple hair sticking out from beneath them indicates that it’s Virgil, though, and Patton watches the gentle rise and fall of his breathing before he shuts the door, assured that Virgil is well.

His next stop is the next bedroom, which is always bursting with color. The slim light from the hallway hits one thing in every color of the rainbow at least, and Patton smiles softly at Roman, mumbling in his sleep with his arms and legs thrown all over the bed. He always takes up as much space as he possibly can, and Patton knows this is because he likes to be touching the people he cares about. If he’s touching them, then they are okay and can be protected. Patton knows Roman is okay, and he quietly shuts the door behind him.

The next door is the master bedroom. They use it for cuddling, or sometimes all sleeping together on the bad nights and bad days.

The next door is Patton’s, and he doesn’t look into his own room to see the silly stickers of dogs and cats and birds and frogs. He doesn’t open the door to see his belongings and permanent fixtures because he knows they are there. He isn’t worried about them.

Patton cracks the next door, and the beam of light falls right on the prosthetic leg next to the bed. Under the covers is Logan’s distinct form, and on the nightstand is a lamp and the book they are currently reading. Patton can’t be sure because Logan goes through books like Patton does cookies, but he thinks it’s a copy of Sherlock Holmes. Probably the same copy they’ve read four times already, and have also definitely read to everyone else on the bad days and bad nights. Patton shuts the door quietly behind him, knowing that Logan, too, is okay.

Logan had survived the loss of their leg, and they had Patton to thank. It was Patton’s quick thinking that day that had kept Logan out of death’s domain, and it was Patton’s refusal to let them go easily that made Logan keep fighting despite their own pain.

Roman had survived the bullet to the chest, and he had Patton to thank. Patton was the one who dug it out, and talked Roman through everything, and Patton was the one that made absolutely sure that Roman was not permitted to leave this world quite yet.

Virgil had survived the knife to the gut, and he had Patton to thank. It was Patton’s steady hand that removed the object intended to kill him, and it was Patton’s quicksilver mind that found another way to staunch the bleeding when all their bandages and supplies were gone and it was Patton’s stubborn and protective nature that gripped Virgil’s life and anchored him here, with his family, where he belonged.

Patton had survived countless deaths and close calls, and he had his family to thank. It didn’t matter that they were in a war, or that they were all suffering and in danger. At the end or in the middle of a hard day, they were always ready to give him support and affection and really, anything else he needed to keep going. Patton had saved the life of each of his family members once, but they had pulled him back countless times. For right now, remembering that was enough.

In the morning, when they all woke up, Patton would tell them about his nightmare. They would give him hugs and make breakfast, and Patton would pull them all into the master bedroom to cuddle after because that was their safe space, where nothing bad could happen. They would stay together all day, and simply be, and that was enough. Patton and his partners - they weren’t romantic, but they were more than friends, and that was something Patton absolutely loved about them - would get to watch reruns of good shows and reread passages of good books and play good songs on repeat until tomorrow, when they would pick up life like they hadn’t taken a day-long break from it, and everything would be fine. It always was.

For now, Patton went into their living room and muted the T.V. volume. He could watch something good until his family got up, and when they did, they could all watch it together.


End file.
